The Armor of Light

Stained Glass in Western France, 1250-1325

Meredith Parsons Lillich

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520328792
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

This landmark study is the first to look closely at the stained glass produced between 1250 and 1325 in western France during the late Capetian era. Generously illustrated with a wealth of color and black-and-white images never before published including many from French churches now closed to the public, Lillich greatly expands our knowledge of both the art and the society from which it emerged. The period Lillich chronicles begins with the region's new vitality following the knights' return from the crusades and ends with the onset of economic uncertainty and unrest that preceded the Hundred Years' War. She reveals that the stained glass of this 75-year span is forceful and uninhibited, dramatic and dazzling, characteristic of what we now term expressionism. Lillich tracks and identifies painters, glazing shops, working methods, models, and sources to argue that the stained glass is a major style with its own developmental evolution and character, putting to rest the notion that this art is merely transitional and provincial.

This title was originally published in 1994.

Many titles in the Voices Revived program are also newly available as ebooks, offered at a discounted price to support wider access to scholarly work.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS 10
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTE TO THE READER
• CHAPTER ONE Plantagenet Roots
• CHAPTER TWO Maine: The Cathedral of Le Mans
• CHAPTER THREE Borderlands of Normandy: Crosscurrents
• CHAPTER FOUR Poitou: Suinte-Rudegonile de Poitiers
• CHAPTER FIVE Brittany: The Cathedral of Dol
• CHAPTER SIX Lower Normandy: The Cathedral of Sees
• CHAPTER SEVEN The Western Realm: La Trinité de Vendôme
• CHAPTER EIGHT The Western Realm: Evron
• CHAPTER NINE The Western Realm: Saint-Père de Chartres, Revisited
• NOTES
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
• GENERAL INDEX
• INDEX OF MONUMENTS AND WORKS OF ART